


Information

by Chamerion



Series: Songs For Nomads [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chamerion/pseuds/Chamerion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which winter marches closer, politics marches on, important information is both said and left unsaid, and two men have something in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Information

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluRaaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluRaaven/gifts).



> This is a coda to my story _Songs For Nomads_ , and/or a teaser for the sequel, but I think it can stand on its own.

 

About a month after escaping Northwatch, Thorald Grey-Mane stands in the ancient throne room of Ysgramor. It’s cold. Or maybe it’s just that he hasn’t put on weight, that he can yet count his ribs when he pulls on his shirt in the mornings. Either way, he’s aware that Ulfric Stormcloak can see him shiver. “Reporting in,” he says. His mouth is dry.

It isn’t like him, to be so conscious of himself. Thorald’s family is poor – or what passes for poor in a prosperous town like Whiterun. The impressive eaves of Grey-Mane Hall are bare within, missing most of the heirlooms they once contained, and his mother is known for her talent at haggling in the market. But Thorald has never _felt_ poor. His uncle is a Companion and a high-ranking thane in Balgruuf’s court, and his father’s name carries weight even beyond the borders of Skyrim. Ulfric Stormcloak may rule from Ysgramor’s throne, but Eorlund Grey-Mane is a spiritual heir to the First Man through Yngol his son – forger of Wuuthrad, greatest of Atmoran smiths – and his family has worked the Skyforge since its discovery. Volund the Grey was smith to the Jorrvaskr’s crew under Jeek of the River. Thorald’s bloodline is older than that of Ulfric himself.

 _You can’t eat pride_ , Olfrid Battle-Born was fond of advising, back when their families did anything so friendly as give advice. But it straightens a man’s shoulders. And Thorald knows enough to see it for the armor that it is, to let it defend him without weighing him down. Olfina is tetchy about serving mead and scrubbing tables. Avulstein is the eldest son of a famous family, and sometimes sees slights to his honor where none are intended. Thorald is his mother’s son, and Fralia Grey-Mane is a Riverwood herbalist’s daughter who sees no shame in trading goods for goods when one doesn’t have coin.

It is far from the first time he’s been in a jarl’s court. It’s not even the first time he’s been in the Palace of the Kings. But as Ulfric Stormcloak looks him up and down, Thorald cannot escape the feeling that he’s being measured – or the fear that he’ll be found wanting.

He knows better than anyone that he’s not quite whole, any longer.

“Thorald Grey-Mane,” rumbles the jarl, without straightening from his slouch on Ysgramor’s throne. He greets Avulstein by name as well, sonorous voice echoing in the ancient hall. Thorald wonders, briefly, if the man truly does recognize them, or if his steward apprised him of their names before showing them in. It’s hardly possible that he knows every soldier in his army on sight – but then, folk pay more attention to Eorlund Grey-Mane’s sons. The Thalmor certainly did. _Stop_ , he scolds himself, harshly. Now is not the moment.

“I had heard you were captured,” Stormcloak continues. “Possibly dead. It cheers me to see that the rumors were untrue. How did you escape the Legion?”

Avulstein steps closer, protective; he’s unobtrusive about it, but Thorald can feel the tension in his brother’s hovering body. “I didn’t escape from the Imperials, my jarl,” Thorald says. The words, to his relief, come out crisply.

“No?” Stormcloak cocks an eyebrow. “How came you here, then?”

Thorald takes a breath. “They handed me over to the Thalmor. By order of the Embassy. Our intelligence on their fortress in the northwest of Haafingar is true. That’s where I escaped from,” he says, all in a rush. Swallows. “My jarl.”

In the silence that follows he can hear the flames in the braziers snap and flicker. On either side of the throne, the steward and the housecarl look quickly to Jarl Ulfric. For his part the jarl barely stirs, does not even sit up, but Thorald watches him clench the stone arms of his seat so hard that his knuckles go white. After a moment he exchanges a glance with Galmar Stone-Fist. “ _Faithless sons of bitches_ ,” the Stone-Fist exhales. Avulstein growls his approval.

“Indeed.” The answer is curt, the jarl’s face expressionless. Slowly, the fingers of his left hand trace a groove on Ysgramor’s throne, where the mail sleeves of a hundred kings before him have worn the granite smooth. His right hand props up his chin. His gaze, meantime, returns to Thorald, and does not leave. The light from the braziers casts the rugged lines of his face in stark relief, so that shadows waver beneath his cheekbones and under his brows. “How far have you traveled today?” Stormcloak finally asks, in the tone of a man making small talk. The question is so unexpected that Thorald gapes at him.

“Five leagues or so,” Avulstein answers, when he doesn’t respond. “From the little fishing camp two days north of the Mixwater.”

The jarl looks at his brother. “You report to Yrsarald, do you not?”

“Yes, my jarl. He gave me leave to visit my family, and inquire in Whiterun about my brother.”

“Good,” says Jarl Ulfric, brusquely, and turns back to Thorald. “I expect you’re hungry.” It is not a question. “Sit. I would speak with you.”

Thorald feels his gut rock slightly, like the deck of a ship at anchor. “Jorleif,” the jarl is saying, “fetch Sifnar.” Another wordless glance passes between him and his housecarl; Galmar Stone-Fist clearly takes it as a dismissal, because he steps away from the throne and makes his way toward the door of the war room. Avulstein is slower to take the hint. Stormcloak arches one brow at him. “Your brother will join you in the barracks momentarily,” he says, and Avulstein flushes, claps Thorald on the shoulder. He pulls away reluctantly. His elder brother is always reluctant to leave his side these days. Thorald wishes he would relax. He has had more than his fill of feeling helpless.  

“Sit.” Jarl Ulfric gestures at the long banquet table. Looks again at Stone-Fist. His housecarl lingers in the doorway of the war room, looking back with an odd, strained expression on his face, before stepping inside. Stormcloak watches him go. Then he rises, descends his throne in three long strides, and sits down across the table, swinging his long legs over the heavy wooden bench. Thorald looks up in surprise. A silver-haired cook appears from the kitchens and lays down a tray.

“Eat,” the jarl rumbles.

The spread is simple – the war has limited trade, and growing crops in Eastmarch is always a challenge – but it’s still fit for a jarl: goat cheese and jazbay grapes, dark rye _flatbrod_ and smoked salmon from the White River. Stormcloak pours Thorald’s mead as a host should, but leaves his own mug untouched. It strikes Thorald as odd, though he can’t say why. He serves himself awkwardly, conscious of the eyes upon him. The other man’s presence is heavy across the table. Large, and silent, and steady – though he eats nothing but jazbay, and Thorald notices that he herds the grapes around the plate with his fingers, like a child picking aimlessly at his supper. Perhaps he isn’t hungry. Perhaps the jarl only eats to put him at ease. Soon he forgets to wonder, as the salmon melts like butter in his mouth. Thorald’s nerves steady a bit. He is, he realizes, very hungry.

That’s when Jarl Ulfric speaks. “What did they ask you,” he says, quietly, “and what did you tell them?”

Thorald feels his eyes startle up to the other man’s face, like game birds flushed from cover. “Nothing,” he blurts.

The jarl’s gaze sharpens, face suddenly hard. “You are a captain, no?” he asks.

“Aye.”

“And you and your men were captured in a skirmish near Morthal.”

“My unit and one other, yes,” Thorald says, feeling defensive.

“And when the goldskins secured your transfer from Castle Dour’s dungeons,” Jarl Ulfric presses, dry and harsh, “did they also transfer your men? Or was it only the officer in command?”

Thorald can see what he’s getting at, and hastens to explain. “It wasn’t – they never asked,” he says. “Not about the war.” His words are met with a heavy silence.

“I find that hard to believe,” the other man murmurs, after studying him for a long moment. His fingers drum once on the table, near his empty tankard. Thorald wonders, suddenly, if Stormcloak avoided mead because he wanted Thorald’s tongue loose and his own senses sharp. He feels slightly betrayed. “What did they ask you, then?”

He has to swallow twice against his cottony throat. “They wanted – they asked me about my family.”

“Your father? Your uncle?”

“Everyone.” He pushes away his plate, puts his hands in his lap. “They asked...the oddest questions.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Thorald says. The smell of the salmon suddenly turns his stomach. Sometimes they got salted fish in the dungeons, in place of the moldy black bread, and he’d looked forward to the variety until one torture session when he’d vomited up his daily meal and for hours tasted nothing but rotten herring.

Jarl Ulfric is still eyeing him fiercely. “Knowing what they wanted,” he says, “could prove invaluable if—”

“I don’t know what they wanted,” Thorald says, voice too loud in the empty stone hall. His throat is tight. “They didn’t ask me about the war. They accused me of being a Stormcloak, which they already knew, and of being a Talos worshipper, which they must have guessed. But they didn’t seem to care for how I answered. They just wanted me to – to...”

“Break,” the Jarl of Windhelm murmurs. “Lose sight of yourself in the face of all they did to you, and all they said you were, until you cared for nothing but having an end to the pain.”

A moment ago he was avoiding the jarl’s eyes, but now Thorald stares at him, winded. Feeling as though someone has peeled back his skin and peered inside. After a long moment Stormcloak shifts under his scrutiny. “I fought in the Great War,” he says. Down the hall, the great banner of Eastmarch floats on a draft. His eyes follow it briefly. “I remember how it was, for men the Thalmor captured.”

Everyone knows that Ulfric Stormcloak was a legionnaire, long ago. _Just another soldier_ , say his supporters, _forced to watch as a craven Empire spat upon his service. Traitor_ say his enemies. _Oathbreaker_. When he enlisted Thorald overheard him arguing with his housecarl, speaking of long-dead comrades. The passion moved him, but somehow he’s never thought about the individuals behind the symbols. Thorald wonders whether the men Jarl Ulfric speaks of were ever the same, afterward. Avulstein growls and fusses over his scars, but outside the grip of dark dreams Thorald can view them with a strange detachment, as though the pain they represent was inflicted on someone else. What he cannot forget – what will haunt him as long as he lives, and maybe longer – are the faces of the men imprisoned with him. The ones who did not survive. He can remember the painfully young woman who was more stoic than any of them under torture, but sobbed softly during the night. Can hear the ragged breathing of the man in the adjoining cell, the way his wet rasps labored until one evening they ceased to sound at all. Can see the sweat-slicked red hair of Brokkr who soon filled the dead man’s place, who cursed and fought every time they dragged him down the hall, who – one day when Thorald lay on the freezing floor of his cell where they had tossed him in a heap, his mind a despairing blank – rapped insistently on the wall between them until Thorald had to drag himself up from his misery to answer. Dead, all of them.

He shakes himself. Stormcloak is still eyeing him like a sabrecat might eye its next meal, the dark bronze mane falling over his ears only adding to the effect. Thorald feels a twist of unease. Everyone in Skyrim has an opinion on Ulfric Stormcloak. It’s easy to castigate a man one’s never met, but now he finds himself thinking of those who say that the man loves himself more than Skyrim, that he is after the throne and will use anything to get it. He spoke frankly of his time at war, one soldier to another; a man might feel he’d been taken into the jarl’s confidence. But there is a guarded shrewdness in his manner that says Stormcloak’s words were calculated. Just like the mead that’s going to Thorald’s head, after months of water. Just like his own empty tankard. “I will ask you again,” the jarl rumbles. “What did you tell them?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Thorald says, angry now. “On my honor, nothing. I swear to you by Talos. Ask me a hundred times, my lord – you won’t get another answer.”

The jarl’s face sets like flint. “Then you are a brave man and a true Nord,” Stormcloak finally says, softly, and after the tough questioning his tone takes Thorald off guard. His expression, too. There’s ill-concealed strain in the craggy lines of his face, something edgy and raw and at odds with his words. Thorald can’t imagine what he has to look so miserable about. His battle plans are safe, at least for the moment. There is a long silence.

“How did you escape?” the jarl finally asks.

And, relieved by the change of subject, Thorald Grey-Mane takes a steadying breath, and begins to talk.

 

* * *

 

At long last, Ulfric Stormcloak pours himself a mug of mead, though he does not drink. His cloak sweeps heavily at his heels as he strides into the war room. Galmar is holding a murmured conversation with Yrsarald, but the housecarl breaks off immediately as Ulfric enters, turning to scan his liege lord with a piercing gaze. The jarl ignores him. Paces to the window before turning sharply on his heel. He looks down into his tankard. Switches it idly from one hand to the other. Still, he does not drink.

“What did the elves want with him?” Galmar asks.

“Nothing of consequence,” Ulfric says, brusquely. “I suspect they’ve their eye on his father, for whatever reason, but if so they’re playing a long game.” Slow, heavy flakes are falling outside the palce. The jarl watches them through the smoky windows. “Tullius’ first winter north of the Jeralls...” Abruptly he leans over the map table, heavy brows drawn down as though to glare the red markers into submission. “Talk to me, Galmar.”

“The Rift can’t feed all the north,” says his general, baldly. “Balgruuf is getting rich selling grain to both sides, but we’re not in a position to take advantage – the bulk of Whiterun’s border is with Legion-held territory, and that’s where the bulk of the food is going. We’re not supplied for a winter campaign. Simple as that.”

The jarl curses. “I was afraid you were going to tell me that.” One finger traces a route through the swamps of Hjaalmarch, frozen now for an army to march on – one of many such roads not marked on any map. “Talos, it seems a waste.”

“Maybe not.” Galmar Stone-Fist crosses his muscled forearms. “You remember what I told you about the Jagged Crown?”

“Not this again.”

“It’s a symbol, Ulfric. Of a time before jarls and moots, when a king was a king because his enemies fell before him, and his people rose because they loved him.” He cocks an eyebrow. “You of all men ought to appreciate that.”

“I appreciate that you want to waste dwindling resources and good men chasing a legend. We don’t even know if it exists.”

“It exists. I’ve got Borgas’ resting place narrowed down to two or three crypts. And better to put the men to use chasing legends than leave them in Windhelm starting tavern brawls, or else hunkered down in the snow eating stringy hare and losing morale. At worst they keep their bladework sharp on the draugr. At best you’ve got something to press your claim at the Moot. You know I’m right, Ulfric.”

“The Moot won’t matter unless the war is won,” Ulfric reminds him, but relents nonetheless. “Fine. I suppose you want a handpicked scout force?”

“Aye. I’m thinking Ingvar, Signe, Halvard...Ralof...”

The jarl hums under his breath. “Take the Grey-Mane lad with you.”

Galmar shakes his head. “He needs some meat on his bones before he’ll make a soldier.”

“So will we all, before the winter’s out.” Ulfric gestures to the long bare boards of the feasting table. “Take him with you, Galmar. He’ll never be safe till the Thalmor are driven from Skyrim. No man fights harder than one who feels he must.” His housecarl fixes him with a long, searching gaze. “And he’s been in a cage these three months,” the jarl continues, more quietly. “He’ll recover best if he’s not left to stew in another.”

Galmar grunts an affirmation. Ulfric sighs, at long last bringing the tankard to his lips. Very deftly, for a man with such massive paws, his housecarl plucks it from his grasp. “Fine. But you owe me a drink.”

The jarl appears less put out by the swiped mead than by the loss of a tankard with which to occupy his restless hands; he drums his fingers on the table before crossing his arms, toying irritably with the links of his mail coat. “And you’ll owe me one, when this theory of yours turns up nothing but mouldering bones.”

Galmar takes a long swallow. “Done.”

“And Galmar,” Ulfric continues, after a moment. “Tell Hjornskar that if a skeever moves in Whiterun, I want to know of it.”

“Our spies are keeping a close eye on which way the wind from Dragonsreach is blowing, never fear.”

“It’s not Balgruuf that concerns me, this time.” The jarl leans over the map table once more, his voice gone husky with contemplation. “If we’re to chase legends I’ve another one for you, and she isn’t buried in a crypt.” One blunt finger taps the parchment at Whiterun. “The Greybeards summoned her four months ago.”


End file.
